


Enough

by Chamelaucium



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2018-11-04 19:12:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10997187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chamelaucium/pseuds/Chamelaucium
Summary: It's always been enough for Leonardo that Ezio is his friend, that he is the one he trusts enough to come to for respite and peace. It's enough that he can watch the rise and fall of Ezio's chest as he sleeps and know that he issafe. Ezio's sleepy"caro mio"breaks his heart just a little each time, but it's enough.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! This is my first fic for this fandom, though I've been playing the games for years. I've loved these two ever since I first played the game so I hope this will do them justice... Enjoy! :)

Every time Ezio appears in Leonardo's Venice workshop without a word or a sound, half frightening the housekeeper to death and breaking Leonardo from whichever dream-like state he's in as he works on his designs, Leonardo's throat closes up momentarily in gratitude that his friend is here, breathing and alive. Leonardo throws his arms around Ezio - such embraces have become normal between them and it warms Leonardo's heart to feel Ezio's strong arms close around him without hesitation, his reticence to show affection gone for now. Leonardo feels safe with Ezio there, pressed up against his wall of muscle, but sometimes he wishes he could be the one to protect him for once.

And then they release each other, Leonardo sadly taking in the new scratches and scars on Ezio's prematurely lined face, and he swallows his anger - at his friend, for putting himself in danger; at the people who have driven him to this life; at himself, for wanting what he cannot have. 

This time is no different from all the others. Leonardo starts at the feel of warm breath on his cheek and hears Ezio's voice, recognising it instantly. "I see you're still working hard, amico mio," he says and Leonardo can hear the amusement in his voice. Now he looks around, he has to admit his desk is a little chaotic. Chaotic order though, he knows where everything is. 

He turns to face his friend, the familiar rush of warmth flooding him at the sight and sound and smell of Ezio, here, alive, with him. He starts a little at the sight of the bloodstains splattered across his torso and sleeves, though he shouldn't be surprised any more. Ezio takes a step back, as if giving himself up to Leo's assessing gaze.

“So, it appears, have you,” Leonardo remarks dryly and Ezio smiles, ducking his head as if chastened. 

“The guards were not amenable to making my job any easier today,” he replies, his face grimacing a little and once again, Leonardo feels a sharp twist in his chest that Ezio has been dragged into this life, that he can kill as easily as Leonardo can sketch and still keeps his distaste for it. It could be so easy, Leonardo reflects, to lose oneself entirely in the feel of a blade slicing through flesh as easily as butter, the hot stench of blood and fear. He shakes his head to rid himself of such thoughts; Ezio comes to him for respite, and respite is what he will provide.

“You’re here now,” he says, keeping his voice light. “But if you think I’ll let you trail canal water and blood all over my workshop, you’re mistaken!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Ezio says, the light returning to his face and Leonardo makes him take of his boots and his cloak, leaving them by the door to the kitchen where his housemaid Annetta will take care of them in the morning. Ezio looks strangely vulnerable without his cloak. He’s still muscled as an ox, but it’s almost as if the cloak is his shield and his protection and without it he’s at a loss. 

He wears simple clothes underneath, as Leonardo makes him shed his boiled leather armour – he will not be attacked here, no one would ever think to find him in a humble artist’s workshop – though Leonardo doesn’t doubt there’s more underneath the plain woollen shirt he’s wearing, and his mouth goes dry at the thought of finding out. He quickly turns away before his mind can wander further down these dangerous paths, though mercifully Ezio doesn’t seem to notice his sudden distraction and is leaning down to look at the sketches Leonardo was working on.

“It’s lucky you arrived when you did,” Leonardo says and he heard Ezio give a hum of inquisition behind him. He’s rootling through his cupboard, and he barely hears Ezio approaching, the only clue the soft creak of the floorboard as he comes to stand by Leonardo, who’s kneeling down and starts at his appearance. 

“And why is that?”

“The Duchessa I painted liked my work so much she sent me a bottle of her finest vintage wine,” he says, and lets out a little crow of joy when he finds it and pulls it out triumphantly. He lets Ezio examine the bottle, his face lighting up and his eyes are full of mischief when he looks at Leonardo again; the sight makes Leonardo’s breath catch. “I was saving it for when you stopped by,” he says, simply for the sake of doing something rather than because Ezio needs to know that. 

“I propose we drink it all,” Ezio says and Leonardo finds his enthusiasm catching. “Have you eaten already?”

“Annetta left me some supper,” he says. He remembers his housekeeper forcing him to eat lunch with her, and before she left that evening she’d told him where to find his supper. He’d clean forgotten about it, but now Ezio is here and… well, Ezio is here. Leonardo caln’t help how much he’s missed him. “When was the last time  _ you _ ate?” he asks and Ezio shrugs. 

“I had a little something this morning.”

Leonardo wonders how true that is. “Of course we’ll share,” he says, and leads Ezio to the kitchen. He doesn’t keep much in here, perhaps because he hardly eats, but there’s Annetta’s stew and he has a little bread. He ushers Ezio into a seat and warms the food; as he does so he heard Ezio’s stomach grumble loudly and the assassin smiles sheepishly.

Eventually the food is ready and Leonardo joins him at the table, two plates of soft bread and warming stew before them. Ezio tucks in but Leonardo picks at his, not really hungry – or at least, not hungry for things he can eat. His heart, that’s a different matter.

He makes himself concentrate on looking normal and not staring at Ezio, drinking in the man and memorising every line on his face, every cut on his hands. Ezio is finished while Leonardo’s plate is hardly touched; wordlessly he offers his to Ezio and the younger man accepts eagerly. When they are done with food, Leonardo sweeps the things into a basin and banks the fire down. They head through the workshop to the one room beyond, which is Leonardo’s parlour, living room and bedchamber in one. The bed is off in one corner and hidden by a heavy crimson curtain, but the fire is cosy and there are two chairs before it just ready to be sat in and to talk of anything, everything, nothing.

Ezio has picked up the bottle of wine and Leonardo is hard pressed to keep his smile hidden, so he doesn’t bother. Of course Ezio would remember the alcohol.

“I think you forgot the most important thing, Leonardo,” he grins.

Not quite, Leonardo thinks, though he doesn’t say it, only fetches two glasses and hands them to Ezio. All the while he has Ezio with him, he is content. He watches as the dark red liquid fills the glass, reflecting off the insides and the fire shining through it, turning the swirls orange as it rises higher. When it’s full Ezio hands it to him and sets the bottle on the small side table as they move over to the chairs. They came with the workshop, as did most of the furniture here, and they are old; but so soft Leonardo sinks into the cushions. Ezio’s face is one of bliss and he shuts his eyes for a few minutes; Leonardo wonders when the last time he stopped was. Does he ever stop? Does he sleep? Or is he constantly on the move, hiding, killing, and the only time he stops is when he slips in through Leonardo’s back door?

He probably won’t ever know, as Ezio is always reluctant to talk about it. Understandably so; his lifestyle is hard and lonely and Leonardo is only too ready to help him forget it. Ezio’s looking at the wine sullenly, and Leonardo wonders what he’s thinking about; how long it’s been since he’s had such creature comforts as this, or how unsettlingly reminiscent the wine is of blood? 

Seeing it, Leonardo shakes himself and focuses on Ezio, not himself. Ezio needs him, and needs him not a preoccupied mess. He does what he usually does, and does well – distracts his friend with amusing anecdotes of various nobles he’s been employed by since they saw each other last, some of them more eccentric even than Leonardo himself. And gradually the shadows leave Ezio’s face and the lines around his eyes deepen as his smile widens. What Leonardo would give to keep him like this forever – happy. That’s all he wants; if he could never pick up a pencil or paintbrush again, it would be worth it if Ezio was happy. But these thoughts never manifest themselves in any way beyond perhaps a pat on Ezio shoulder or a linger of perhaps a second longer than usual as they part – he never knows whether this will be the last time he’ll see Ezio, or if the next time will be his body in the canals or swaying from the gallows in the Piazza di San Marco.

As the wine level in their glasses lowers and the bottle becomes lighter, the mood grows steadily more cheerful until it seems Ezio has forgotten what he does, what he must do every day, and is regaling Leonardo with some of his Thieves friends’ antics. He keeps mentioning someone called Rosa; she must be beautiful, Leonardo thinks, to have his friend so enamoured of her. He quenches the flames of jealousy that threaten to flare up as Ezio talks about her; Ezio is not his, and never will be. Not in this world, where even if Ezio returned his affection – such an unassuming word for what Leonardo feels, the burning longing he can never quite suppress – it would mean hanging for both of them, if the mob didn’t get to them first. 

Leonardo can feel his head getting lighter yet stuffier at the same time, and it makes him feel dizzy. Perhaps he should have eaten some more at dinner, rather than picking at it like he did. Ezio has always laughed despairingly at Leonardo's appetite, or lack thereof, likening him to a bird. It almost feels like it should be an insult, but there's always such affection on Ezio's face as he says it that he knows his friend doesn't mean it.

There's a lull in the conversation and the two of them sit in companionable silence, next to each other in their chairs, and Leonardo suddenly has the urge to reach out and touch Ezio. He restrains himself and instead reaches for the bottle between them; perhaps if the wine fills his head it won't be so full of rash ideas and dreams he knows can't be. But as he reaches for it, there's a warm hand over his and Leonardo would know that calloused palm anywhere, even if he were blinded. His mouth goes dry and he forces himself to look at Ezio in confusion, his heart thumping uncomfortably fast.

"I think you've had enough, my friend," Ezio says, his mouth twitching up at the corners and crinkles around his eyes. Leonardo pulls his hand out from underneath Ezio's, not least because the warmth of the assassin's hand on his was making him a little too warm himself. Hopefully Ezio will simply write off any flush on his face as due to alcohol rather than what it is.

"I'm perfectly fine," Leonardo replies archly, looking Ezio in the eye, but he doesn't take the bottle again. "You've drunk as much if not more than me."

"Exactly," Ezio says, and why is it he always sounds so smug? "And I'm ready for bed. As are you, I'd imagine."

Leonardo's workshop doesn't have a spare room, and it's become natural for Ezio to simply share Leonardo's bed for the time he stays. It's more than big enough, making up for the lack of another bedroom perhaps, though Ezio hardly ever stays long enough for it to become an inconvenience. Usually a night, and then he's off again; sometimes two. 

Leonardo simply nods in response to Ezio's statement, his mind too full of everything to try and argue. Not just of Ezio, though the man does occupy his thoughts a lot - especially as he's helping him up and they're both headed to the bed, stumbling slightly and Ezio's mellow chuckle is sounding in Leonardo's ear, his hand on Leonardo's arm – but it seems that when he drinks, his mind goes into overdrive, reeling with ideas and designs and the physics behind it all. His fingers are itching to grab a pencil and sketch them down, to pour out his thoughts onto a page until he can make sense of them, but Ezio’s hand is firmly around his as he leads him to the bed and distracted as he is, Leonardo is not going to turn this down. Ezio is pulling off his shirt so Leonardo follows suit and the two of them sprawl in the bed, the room a little too stuffy for the thick velvet blanket to be used. Leonardo isn’t sure whether to be pleased about this or not: it means Ezio’s chest is bared to him, and he forces himself to shut his eyes and not stare. His friend deserves better than to be the object of Leonardo’s gaze.

Beside him Ezio shuffles around and then stills, but Leonardo can’t and fiddles with the edge of the blanket, still too het up to fall asleep. He hears Ezio chuckle and immediately freezes.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, the only other sound in the room the light crackle of the dying fire and Ezio’s breathing.

“You,” Ezio says, and he rolls over to face Leonardo, who turns his head to look at him. Ezio’s eyes are heavy lidded but warm and he’s wearing a smile that’s gently amused. “You remind me of my brother.”

Leonardo splutters, his cheeks flaming – he definitely does not want to remind Ezio of his brother.

“Federico and I used to share a bed until he was old enough to sleep on his own,” Ezio says, his voice thick with fatigue. With the warmth of the bed, their body heat and all the wine, it’s obviously difficult for him to stay awake. “He used to fidget, just like you do.” For just a moment the silence seems heavier, and Ezio averts his gaze; Leonardo doesn’t breathe until his friend’s eyes flick back up to him and he gives a small tight smile. “I would sneak into his chamber and join him. He’d always pretend to scold me but I knew he missed me too, because he’d always relent.”

Leonardo isn’t sure what to do when Ezio talks about his childhood, not that he often does, if at all. In fact Leonardo knows very little about his friend before they met, perhaps because it’s been too painful. So he reaches out and finds Ezio’s hand, their hands resting palm to palm lightly for a second before Leonardo starts to pull away, his silent reassurance given. But Ezio closes his hand around Leonardo’s before he can do so, and the grin he gives him even as his eyes close is mischievous. “Now you can’t fidget,” is all he says and Leonardo relaxes. 

Again there is quiet and Ezio’s breathing slows, becoming rhythmic and deep, but Leonardo still stares up at the wooden ceiling, Ezio’s hand around his own.

“Ezio?” he asks quietly, hoping his friend is asleep for then he won’t have to hear the answer to the question he means to ask.

“Yes, Leonardo?” Ezio’s mumbled reply comes from beside him, though Ezio doesn’t open his eyes. His hand is still holding Leonardo’s and Leonardo wonders what he’s thinking, whether it means as much to Ezio as it does to him.

“This time… Are you going to stay?”

Ezio does smile this time, even as he keeps his eyes closed. “I think so, caro mio. I think so.”

_ Caro mio.  _ It’s enough, Leonardo thinks, and his mind ceases to whirl, suddenly peaceful, and he closes his eyes.

_ Caro mio.  _ It’s not enough, but it will do.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning Leonardo wakes before Ezio, though for a moment he is confused by the presence of someone else in his bed before the sleepy haze clears from his mind as he blinks and recognises Ezio’s lean body. Lying on his front with his head buried in the pillow and all muscled shoulders and arms, Ezio is beautiful in what little light manages to filter through the small window in this room; he is beautiful all the time. Beautiful. Dangerous.

As if he can tell Leonardo is thinking about him, Ezio stirs and turns towards Leonardo. His hand seems to reach out unconsciously and he finds the warm patch of sheets where Leonardo was just a moment before, opening his eyes and blinking blearily. Sly and silent as a cat as he is most of the time, waking up he is like a kitten, Leonardo thinks, opening its eyes for the first time. It’s surprisingly vulnerable.

He smiles a little at Leonardo, his head flopping back down onto the soft cushions. “What time is it?” he asks, his voice rough with sleep. Leonardo ignores the little shiver of desire it sends through him and peers out of the high-set window, trying to judge the sun.

“Mid-morning, no later than the eleventh hour,” he says and he heard Ezio make a muffled noise, unintelligible in its meaning. “Stay in bed,” he urges him. “I doubt you’ve slept in weeks.”

“I’m fine,” Ezio protests and, well, when Ezio is determined to do something it’s someone stronger than Leonardo who can stop him. Especially when he decides to stretch languidly, lazily, his muscles rippling gently and Leonardo’s mouth goes dry. Hurriedly he reaches for his shirt and dresses quickly.

“I’ll get us some breakfast,” he says, reaching for his short crimson cape. “I won’t be long.”

“I’m hungry,” Ezio calls after him as he leaves and Leonardo smiles to himself as he shuts the front door behind him. He didn’t open the workshop shutters so it’s still dark in there but it means Ezio can get up and wander around without being seen. The smile drops when he gets outside and he pauses for a moment, his back pressed to the door as he catches his breath and gets his head straight. He can’t let himself behave any differently – the baker, the milkmaids, the grocer, they all know him and will be able to tell if there’s something up – but it’s so difficult when Ezio throws him into turmoil. He wouldn’t have it any other way though: Ezio is his best friend, before anything else, and best friends are hard come by as a whore’s son from Vinci. Just because simply _seeing_ Ezio gives Leonardo butterflies in his stomach doesn’t mean he has to act upon it and ruin what they have.

He straightens up and starts on his way, determined to get something nice for Ezio’s breakfast. His lack of appetite last night has fled and his own stomach is gurgling audibly. He hopes there are figs; they have always been his favourite. Thoughts of fresh figs and honey and soft bread fill his mind and makes his stomach growl louder; he hurries on towards the market.

He arrives and is making his way to the fruit stall when he does a double take, ducking his head and appearing interested in the vendor's fresh fish. He knows that head of mousey blonde hair.

He rushes past the familiar figure, hoping against hope they will not recognise him - though it's unlikely, it's been eight years - and he breathes a tiny sigh of relief when he reaches the baker's stall and has bought a freshly baked loaf tucked safely in his side bag.

But luck, it appears, is not with him on this day.

"Leonardo! Leonardo? Is that you?"

The figure scrambles away from the fruit stall - where the pretty vending girl looks relieved the man has left her alone - to chase after Leonardo, leaving him no choice but to fix a smile on his face and turn to greet him.

"Francesco," he says, his lips feeling tight around the forced smile. "I would never have thought to see you here!"

"I could say the same to you," his old friend Francesco says. "Dio mio, Leonardo, but haven't you made something of yourself!" His gaze is roving over Leonardo's attire and he sees the way Francesco's eyes narrow as they see the fine velvet of his cloak, the gold thread embroidery, the ring he wears on his finger.

"It's why we left Vinci," Leonardo says, shifting uncomfortably under Francesco's scrutiny. "There's nothing for a painter there, not like here."

"So I see," Francesco says and Leonardo wishes he would stop staring at him so; his proud, unblinking gaze making him distinctly uncomfortable.

"What brings you to Venezia then?" Leonardo says, hoping that Francesco will stop staring. His blue eyes haven't aged, still cherubic even now he's in his late twenties at least, and it reminds Leonardo of why he was drawn to him in the first place. The longing to capture those eyes, recreate them in paint - perhaps on a miniature of Christ, he thinks.

Francesco has changed, though, and not all for the better. While his eyes remain young as the day Leonardo met him, they squint more than they used to, as if suspicious; his hair hangs lank to his shoulders, and desperately needs a brush and a trim; his clothes have seen better days, though they are perfectly respectable for a man of Vinci. Except that's not all he is, or was.

"Oh, you know," Francesco replies with a shrug, looking determinedly nonchalant though he only succeeds in looking shifty. "The usual. Trade, and making new contacts for my father." Leonardo nods, though he doubts that one of the richest men in Vinci would send his eldest son on business dealings looking like he's just crawled out from under a table at a tavern. He chides himself for his harshness - uncharitable thoughts don't come naturally to Leonardo, though his and Francesco's shared history make it a little easier to not feel guilty about it.

"I hope your success continues," Leonardo says politely, though Francesco hasn't told him about success one way or the other, but Leonardo just wants to get away. "But I really must be going, one of my clients..." He trails off, hoping Francesco will get the hint, and thankfully he does.

"Of course, of course," he says graciously, the very epitome of patrician gentility. The two men nod politely at one another and Leonardo is just turning around ready to hurry away when Francesco speaks again. "Leonardo, I hope to see you around again soon," he says, and his eyes are unblinking again as he stared at Leonardo. "It would be a shame not to, after this chance meeting. It was meant to be." And he gives small smile; it makes Leonardo feel cold. He returns it, tight-lipped, and continues on his way. He hopes never to see those blue angelic eyes again, and curses the luck that has brought Francesco to Venice after all these years.

*

He gets home when the sun is high in the sky, the hottest part of the day. It's not yet summer but it's very warm outside, warm enough that the cool of the still-dark workshop is a relief.

"Ezio?" he calls out as he sheds his cloak, hanging it on the hook by the door.

Ezio responds by padding silently into the room,making Leonardo jump when he sees him in the doorway from the bedroom. He's dressed in his woolen tunic and breeches, no armour or weapons to be seen. Not even the strange, marvellous device Leonardo had helped repair and improve, that hidden blade that seems to belong to another time, another place. Instead he's holding a book, and Leonardo's throat closes at how... _ordinary_ he looks.

"I have food," he says, and Ezio's smile is almost beatific.

"Bene," he says, hurrying over to help Leonardo with the bags. "I'm starving, Leonardo!" With a laugh Leonardo follows him to the kitchen and they settle down for a late breakfast of figs and honey and bread and even some slivers of smoked fish for Ezio. He devours it all with relish, and when they're done it's almost reluctantly that Leonardo removes to the workshop to resume his work.

He's working on a painting for one of the dukes and gradually he becomes absorbed in the colours, the light, the feel of the brush on the canvas. He's only very vaguely aware of Ezio watching him before his friend moves off to sit in the chair by the window, a book in his hand and sunlight streaming in through the now open shutters.

It's when he's done with part of his painting and he looks up to get Ezio's attention that he stops, breath momentarily taken away at the sight. Ezio lounging in the chair, completely at ease and the volume cradled carefully in his large hands; hair falling loose from its tie, the wisps about his face chestnut brown in the sun.

Without saying a word, Leonardo hastily grabs his pencil and a sheet of paper; Ezio starts to look up but Leonardo reprimands him. "Don't move," he warns and Ezio only smiles. This isn't the first time he's indulged Leonardo in his whim to draw him.

In fact, Ezio is the perfect model. He stays perfectly still except to occasionally flick a page, though his mouth is now upturned into a smirk. Leonardo captures it and when the sketch is done, Ezio looks as if he is smiling at something in the pages of the book he's so absorbed in.

Leonardo looks at it for a while once he's finished, trying to decide how pleased he is with it. It's definitely a true likeness, that much is certain -

"It's beautiful," Ezio says from behind his right shoulder, making him jump in alarm - how did he move so fast? Leonardo hadn't even noticed him getting up! - and drop the page but Ezio catches it and inspects it closely. "But then, you can make anything beautiful."

How can Leonardo explain that he doesn't need to _make_ Ezio beautiful;, the man is a masterpiece in his own right. Leonardo could spend the rest of his life with Ezio as his one subject, capturing every smile, laugh, every line and scar; angry and sad moments; the way he bites his lip when he's nervous about telling Leonardo something. But he knows he can never tell Ezio that and he wonders if he would, even if he could.

He feels Ezio's hand on his shoulder for a moment before he's moving away and Leonardo instantly misses the warmth of it and his eyes follow Ezio in place of touching him as Ezio wanders around the bottega, stretching and humming to himself. Leonardo forces himself to go back to the painting he was working on before he got distracted by Ezio, first tucking the sketch of his friend inside a book which contains all his little favourite pieces. There's one of his mother in there, a scene of Vinci from his early days as an artist, and plenty of Ezio.

"I'm hungry again, Leonardo," Ezio calls to him from the kitchen and Leonardo can hear him moving things around. "Did Annetta leave you anything else?"

Leonardo smiles, just a twitch of his lips. "I don't know, but you're welcome to look." He hears Ezio's muted grumble which only makes him smile more and continues with his painting, painstakingly mixing the correct shades of blue.

*

Ezio is with him for a week and then disappears during the night. He doesn't say anything towards the end, but Leonardo can tell in the last couple of days that he's ready to go by the way his wandering becomes pacing and his silences become tenser and he's frowning, as if thinking, planning.

Leonardo doesn't say anything either, not explicitly, but he lets Annetta have full freedom over the kitchen and their last meals together are almost worthy of a nobleman's dining table. All Leonardo says is over wine afterwards, and it's simply a request that Ezio come to him whenever he needs him and whatever for. He phrases it vaguely but he sees that Ezio understands because the pinched look in his eyes dissipates a little at his words.

Before they go to bed on what Leonardo has a feeling is their last night, he notices Ezio placing his cleaned robes near the bed, along with his armour and weapons, and he knows. Ezio will be leaving him tonight. But still he doesn't say anything about it, only gives Ezio a long hard hug that the assassin returns just as fervently; his fists ball in Leonardo's shirt as if trying to anchor himself there, to stop himself leaving, and for a moment it seems as if the entire world is just them, standing there in Leonardo's chamber holding onto each other as if for dear life.

Then they release each other and climb into the bed, pulling the sheets around them. Leonardo watches Ezio's back, his eyes following the curve of his muscled shoulders, until Ezio rolls over and they are facing each other, except Ezio's eyes are closed. Leonardo can't tear his eyes away from the eyelashes that flutter gently against Ezio's cheek but he manages it eventually, sighing a little as he closes his eyes.

He can't sleep though, not when after a while he senses Ezio watching him. He doesn't dare open his eyes to peep through his lashes at him, but with his eyes closed his other senses seem sharpened - he can hear every breath Ezio takes in startlingly loud clarity, smell the clean skin scent of him, and feel the dips in the mattress when he moves. He fancies he can almost hear his heartbeat; Leonardo wonders what he'd taste like if he were to run his tongue along the dip of Ezio's collarbone. Immediately he pushes the thought away and keeps his face relaxed as he can.

He isn't sure how long Ezio doesn't go to sleep for and Leonardo must lie there patiently, waiting to see what will happen. But he's just starting to drift off and think that perhaps he was mistaken and Ezio isn't leaving after all when he feels the other side of the mattress move, dipping and creaking slightly as Ezio eases himself out from under the covers. Leonardo hears the soft sounds of cloth being pulled on, leather ties being pulled and the gentle clink of metal armour. Leonardo's heart is twisting painfully, that his friend has to sneak off like a thief in the night. He just about hears Ezio pad next door to pull on his boots and retrieve his fresh robes and weapons and Leonardo forces himself to stay still. Making a fuss and insisting on goodbyes won't make things any easier.

Instead he lies there, eyes still closed, when Ezio heads back into the room. There's no sound, only Leonardo's breathing.

"Goodbye, Leonardo, amico mio," Ezio whispers and Leonardo hears him turn and leave. His chest feels uncomfortably tight.

He sighs as the door shuts behind Ezio and waits until he hears the soft snap of the back door and then he hurries to watch Ezio melt away seemingly into nowhere. As he watches him go, staying there in the back doorway of his bottega with the wind ruffling his hair until Ezio's graceful figure is but a long memory, all Leonardo can do is pray to the God he's not even sure exists that Ezio lives to fight another day,and another, until he can leave this life behind. But more than that, he just wants Ezio to come back to him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> notes: there is a bit that approaches non-con, but it stops before it gets serious.

It's a whole two months before Leonardo sees Ezio again, nearly three. They've gone longer without seeing each other, but this is the first time they've not seen each other in this long since arriving in Venice. Summer is here and Leonardo finds himself wishing he could share their first Venetian summer with his friend, even though he knows such thoughts will only make him sad. He knows Ezio can't do normal things like sit and enjoy the sun sparkling on the canals by St Mark's Square or stroll through the pleasure gardens. He knows this, but it doesn't stop him wishing.

What makes it worse is the few times he's bumped into Francesco. He's been incredibly unlucky in that regard: out of the whole of the city of Venezia, Francesco's lodgings must be somewhere nearby because Leonardo always comes across him near the market, and is forced to stop and talk for a while. He always tries to escape, but the loquaciousness that Leonardo once found so entrancing when they were bright young things back in Vinci, desperate to make something of themselves, now grates on his nerves as Francesco chatters on about things that seem so pointless to Leonardo's mind. He's always the epitome of politeness, however; he can't help it that Francesco seems stuck in his young mindset, finding the same things amusing as when they were hardly into their majority, drunk on the taste of the freedom of Firenze, where Leonardo sometimes feels like an old man - tired, worn, world-weary. And yet in the dead of night, he cannot bring himself to sleep - too often sleep eludes him and instead he worries, so much so that not even sketching can help him.

It's only when he manages to lose himself completely in his art that he feels his veins thrumming with an energy he can't seem to summon normally. Then, or when Ezio is around.

He's just managed to escape from another chance meeting with Francesco, successfully avoiding an agreement to meet up properly (though only just) and he's got his food supplies tucked tightly under his arm, ready to fall asleep. The way his bones seem to creak sometimes, he could be a hundred years old.

As he's passing under the bridge, the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as his skin begins to prickle unpleasantly; he pauses and glances around, appearing nonchalant. The footpath is busy and he can't see anyone suspicious, so he shakes his head and carries on, eager to get back to his bottega and deposit his purchases in the kitchen and then take a nap. Maybe afterwards he'll feel up to painting.

But no matter how often he shakes his head he can't shake off the uneasy feeling and it keeps him wary and uncomfortable the entire walk back. At first he tries to look around surreptitiously but he concludes that it must just be his tired senses tricking him and he ignores it, writing the goosebumps that sprung up on his neck off as fatigue. It's telling him to get some sleep, he's certain; he didn't get to sleep until it was already light again this morning.

He's glad to make it home and slumps a little as he deposits his food in the kitchen; his mind is troubled and it's made him tired, more tired than he was before and all he wants to do now is nap. He goes to lie down; if a familiar figure appears in his dream, all warm brown eyes and that sly smirk he has...well, it's not Leonardo's fault. Ezio is almost branded on the inside of his eyelids, and Leonardo seems to see him every time he closes his eyes.

He wakes up a few hours later and dusk is just starting to fall, the light from outside muted ever so slightly. It won't be long until it's dark. Cocooned in the warmth of his bed, Leonardo is reluctant to move so instead he reaches for his notebook, sitting on the wooden bedside stand, and the pencil that's always next to if, and he begins to sketch. It doesn't really matter what; sometimes he'll just draw patches of light to practice his shading. That's what he starts to do, trying to recreate the pattern of light falling onto his sheets

He drifts like that, sketching, and his mind is not there in that room. Until he's pulled back sharply by the realisation that his sketch has turned into a very familiar cloak flowing over very familiar broad shoulders and he makes himself stop, setting the paper and pencil down sharply. Perhaps he should go out, sit awhile in the plaza or at the docks and enjoy the mild summer night. The water is always fascinating to draw, or the elegant symmetry of the palazzi.

He's just pulled on his boots and made sure he has his money pouch when he suddenly hears a cracking noise from the store room upstairs followed by a loud thump, like something hitting the floor. Heart suddenly in his throat, Leonardo freezes, his entire body flooded with the fast pumping of his pulse. He needs to find out what it was but he hesitates, fearing the worst.

Swallowing the nerves away he picks up the glass wine decanter and ever so slowly and quietly makes his way out of the bedroom and up the set of narrow rickety stairs in the workshop that lead up to to the store room. As he climbs he holds the decanter aloft, ready to bring it down on the intruder's head. Annetta has been in while he was sketching and lit the candles in the workshop, but there's no light up here and it makes his heart hammer in his chest like a mad thing.

But there's no one there stealing anything - even if there were, they'd be sorely disappointed and find only his supplies of paints and canvases. But then he sees the window is open, its latch broken as if pulled open from the outside; and there behind the crates -

He rushes forward and the decanter falls from his hand, rolling away across the floor as Leonardo falls to his knees before Ezio's prone form lying curled in on himself. He lets out a groan as Leonardo turns him onto his back, raises his head; his eyes don’t focus and then they close. His chest is rising but only just, and then Leonardo sees that his scarlet belt isn't red so much as black, and his hands come away crimson and wet and with the unmistakable tang of iron.

"Ezio," he whispers in horror, but he's strangely calm. He needs to staunch the bleeding, he's lost too much blood already. He can feel it soaking into his breeches from where he knelt in the puddle that had pooled on the floorboards. With deft hands Leonardo finds one of the cloths that protects his canvases and begins tearing it up into strips and securing it around Ezio's middle. He's alarmed at how quickly they turn red too, black in this half light. He needs to get Ezio downstairs, where he can see and where all his medical supplies are, but he's worried at how pale Ezio is, how he hasn't woken up.

But he can't help Ezio unless he gets him downstairs so Leonardo moves with determination, his arms slipping underneath Ezio's back and legs. Ezio is heavy, heavier than he'd imagined for someone so lean, and he nearly topples on the stairs, but he makes it to his bedchamber and gets Ezio on the bed. The bleeding still hasn't stopped, though it's slowing down.

Hesitating only a moment, Leonardo begins removing Ezio's upper layers. Though when he sees the state of Ezio's stomach, a large puncture wound on his left side and various cuts along his ribs - and Leonardo is sure that's a bullet wound in his shoulder, though mercifully it’s only grazed him - anything else going through his mind is immediately washed away.

"Annetta," he calls, hoping against hope his housekeeper is in the kitchen still. "Annetta!" Praise God, she appears in the doorway and immediately she sets about helping, heating water and wine to cleanse the wounds while Leonardo works on staunching the bleeding until finally, finally, the cloth stays white, no beads of red seeping into it. His own hands are caked in blood which he wearily washes off in the bowl of now-pink water, though he doubts  his shirt and breeches will be repaired so easily. They're soaked in Ezio's blood, and he bites his lip.

Ezio is still, deathly still; his chest is rising and falling ever so gently, so gently it's hardly there but for now Leonardo is glad it's there at all. He finishes cleaning Ezio up and while Annetta takes the bowl of dirty water and the soiled cloths away, Leonardo covers Ezio in the velvet bedsheet to keep him warm. He's so tired, exhausted now, and all he really wants to do is lie down but he forces himself to go and see Annetta in the kitchen. Ezio will be fine, he tells himself sternly, though he's on edge as soon as he leaves him.

"Thank you," he says to Annetta and she must hear the weariness in his voice, see the droop to his shoulders, as she pats his arm affectionately.

"He'll be alright," she says, the wrinkles on her face deepening as she gives him a reassuring smile. "He's strong, he'll pull through. And he's lucky to have a friend like you, Messer Leonardo, very lucky indeed." And with another pat on the arm she's bustling out, muttering something about excitement at her age, though she's smiling fondly at Leonardo when she says it and directing him to the food. And then she's gone and Leonardo is left alone - nearly alone. Suddenly ravenous, Leonardo starts on the fruited loaf, buttering it generously, and for a few glorious moments he relishes in the feel of food in his empty stomach.

But then he can't stop thinking about Ezio's lifeless body upstairs, the sickening red pouring from his stomach, the metallic stink of it.

Suddenly he's lost his appetite completely and he sets the half-eaten slice down, the bread sticking in his throat. He hurries back to Ezio and the younger man hasn't moved at all, though Leonardo is ever so slightly reassured by the fact there is some colour back in his face.

And so begins Leonardo's vigil by his friend's bedside. He forces himself to stay awake, watching for any change in Ezio's condition. When Ezio's breathing returns to normal, he notices the dryness in his puffs of breath and hurries to fetch some water, which he carefully dribbles into Ezio's mouth and is pleased when he responds - though his eyes do not open.

Eventually, once the sun is risen and brightening to a white grey, he falls asleep in one of the chairs which he has pulled up to the bed. His head droops onto his chest as his eyes close, and that is how Ezio finds him when he wakes up groggily and in pain in the early afternoon.

"Leonardo?"

Leonardo starts awake when he hears his name in a hoarse whisper and when he sees his friend awake, a smile he can't help breaks out across his face.

"Ezio," he breathes, but his elation immediately turns to concern when Ezio tries to sit up, his face contorting with a grimace of pain.

" _Merda_ ," he groans as Leonardo readjusts the pillows.

"Don't move," Leonardo says gently. "You're badly hurt." Ezio gives a snort at that but he lies still.

"Thank you, Leonardo," he says, catching Leonardo's hand and holding his gaze, eyes serious. "Thank you."

Leonardo feels his heart stutter painfully at that, and as Ezio closes his eyes and lapses back into slumber Leonardo thinks how close he has come to losing Ezio but how lucky he is that he could help him. How many times has Ezio been hurt, so far from help? How many times has he been wounded and completely, utterly alone? It sends a shiver down Leonardo's spine and he watches Ezio a moment longer, reassuring himself in the now firm rise and fall of his chest.

It makes him think of his childhood, then, and the evenings spent with his mother in prayer. Highly religious, she was, but as superstitious as the rest of Vinci. Everything was an omen of some sort - a black cat, a withered tree - it all meant bad things. But the good things, they were all God's work.

Leonardo hasn't thought much about God since he left Vinci a good many years ago now; there's no room for Him in his work. There can only be one creator, after all, and when it comes to his art Leonardo likes to believe it's him. But now, here in his little bedchamber in a workshop in Venice, he offers up one of the prayers he'd say with his mother. Thanking Him for looking after Ezio enough to send him to him, and praying that He'll watch over them.

He doesn't know if God will listen to him - does He listen to anyone? - but he feels a little calmer now. At peace enough to realise how very hungry he is, and with another long look at Ezio he goes to the kitchen and eats ravenously until he can't eat another thing.

*

Ezio sleeps for the rest of the day, and in the evening Leonardo helps him drink and feeds him bread softened in broth. He sees the frustration in Ezio's eyes at being so helpless, but every time he tries to move in a fit of temper, the assassin ends up swearing through clenched teeth and falling back onto the pillows, a faint sheen of sweat on his face.

The exertion of it soon sends him back to sleep and for a long while Leonardo keeps his vigil again, in case Ezio worsens during the night. But he doesn't, and again Leonardo falls asleep where he sits, too tired to move. The next day passes in much the same way, though Leonardo goes out in the afternoon while Ezio sleeps to get food. All the time he's out he fears he'll run into Francesco again - he's had bad luck in that regard - but to his relief Francesco is nowhere to be seen and he makes it back to the bottega in peace, his bag full of food.

That evening, he sits with Ezio as they eat dinner. Ezio is grumbling that he wants to be moving again, but Leonardo deflects his mood with a good-natured roll of his eyes. Ezio sees it and it forces a small smile on his face.

"You've no idea how frustrating this is, Leonardo," Ezio says, for perhaps the hundredth time, but this time Leonardo can hear the smile in his voice.

"Oh I do," Leonardo responds equally cheerfully. "It's as frustrating as listening to you complain all day," he says, raising an eyebrow in Ezio's direction and Ezio ducks his head in acknowledgement.

"Alright," he says, tucking back into his stew. "I am sorry, Leonardo," he sighs. "I don't mean to be a burden, but I - I had nowhere else to go..." Ezio's smile is gone now and he looks suddenly worried.

"No, Ezio," Leonardo says, his hand reaching out to Ezio's and warmth flutters through him when Ezio squeezes his hand in return. "I am glad you came to me, and you are not - you never will be a burden on me," he finishes. Ezio smiles at him gratefully.

"I am lucky to have you," he says quietly, and his gaze is so earnest as he looks at him that Leonardo doesn't quite know what to do with himself.

"Ezio," he begins, then hesitates, but Ezio’s warm eyes encourage him. "Ezio, what happened? How...how did you get so hurt?"

Ezio gives a grim smile, more of a grimace than anything. "It's part of the job, Leonardo," he says, his voice hard and almost sharp; but then he visibly softens. "You don't need to know the details. Let me spare you those, at least."

"I want to know," Leonardo says gently. "I want to help."

"You help me more than you can know, caro mio," Ezio says and again Leonardo's heart skips when he says the endearment, though he can hear from Ezio's tone of voice that he isn't going to tell him. Much as Leonardo does want to help, Ezio is probably right: Knowing how his friend gets hurt probably won't help him, and Heaven knows he worries enough as it is. It feels odd that Ezio wouldn't tell him though; it doesn't sit quite right, like an old woolen cloak that for years is soft to touch but suddenly has developed an itch.

Ezio gives a yawn and Leonardo has to resist the urge to follow suit; his sleep has been broken and sporadic the past few nights and his back will not forgive him if he spends another night in the chair. But Ezio needs the bed more than him, wounded as he is, and it's a sacrifice Leonardo is willing to make. Sometimes he wonders how far he really would go for Ezio, but whenever he starts to doubt himself, doubt his sanity, the assassin steals back into his life and a laugh, a smile, a careless hug will make his heart twist painfully as he again realises that he loves Ezio - he loves him so much that life truly would not be worth living, if Ezio were not there to see it with him.

Ezio is settling down into the pillows and Leonardo takes his bowl away. He is making to take them to the kitchen when Ezio reaches out a hand and catches a sleeve.

"Leave them," he says and Leonardo is so surprised that he does, setting them back down on the unpolished bedside table. Ezio is looking at him intently with those cat-eyes  of his and Leonardo can feel his heart thumping loudly in his chest. Can Ezio tell what effect he has on him? Leonardo would die of shame if he ever found out; the thought that Ezio might find him repulsive, unnatural, is more painful than anything _they_ would do to him for his crime of loving someone he shouldn't.

"When did you last sleep?"

Leonardo is pulled back to the present sharply. He looks at Ezio in confusion.

"Last night," he says, as if it's obvious. Ezio's eyes narrow.

"When did you last sleep properly, in your own bed, without waking up to watch over me?" His gaze holds Leonardo's, not letting him look away. "You're exhausted, Leonardo."

"I'm fine," Leonardo protests, but he falls promptly silent when Ezio takes his hand. He's reassuringly warm; after before when his inert hands were icy cold, the warmth of them is a relief.

"Help me move up, and have a nap," Ezio says, patting the bed beside him with his other hand. "It's not like I've anything better to do, and here I am taking up your own bed for who knows how long."

Leonardo wants to protest that he's fine, he'll go and paint or busy himself some other way, but in truth he feels dog tired. It's as though he hasn't slept in days. So he does as Ezio bids, helping him to shift along the bed to make room without aggravating his wounds, and then he climbs up and covers himself with the sheets. His back is practically singing with thanks, his weary bones creaking sympathetically and his eyes shutting immediately, sleep fluttering nearby. It won't be long til he's asleep.

He can hear only his and Ezio’s breathing, loud in the silence; and then he's gone, slipped peacefully under into a deep sleep.

*

He wakes feeling disorientated and sluggish, and as he lies there trying to make sense of why he's in bed but it's light outside, Ezio suddenly leans into the edge of his view. He's smiling and Leonardo returns it, feeling much better than he did before.

"Good morning," Ezio says brightly and Leonardo realises that's why it's light outside; he's slept the whole night. He stretches, his bony limbs moving with none of the feline gracefulness of Ezio.

"Morning," he mumbles, still slightly muddled but pleasantly so.

"You look much better," Ezio says as Leonardo sits up, feeling as if he's just slept for a week. "Less...peaky."

"Peaky?" Leonardo laughs. "I shouldn't worry about peaky, Ezio, not when you're as badly hurt as you are."

"This is nothing," Ezio says, sounding a little huffy. "I've suffered worse."

Leonardo bites his lip. "Please don't say that, Ezio," he says, wanting to touch Ezio’s hand but unsure of himself, so he resists. "I can't bear the thought of you hurt. I do what I can but the thought of you bleeding to death somewhere I can't find you, can't help you -" He stops, cutting himself off sharply. Ezio is regarding him strangely and Leonardo turns away, swallowing against the lump that has formed in his throat. _I don't think I could bear never seeing you again and just the thought leaves me breathless with the pain of it, so much I can't sleep -_

"I'll go and get some breakfast," he says lamely, and hurries out of the room. In the kitchen he realises his hands are shaking and just for a moment he lets his head fall, cradling it with his palms, and chokes back the emotion he feels threatening to break free. It's a struggle not to let the wave wash over him, but he manages to overcome it though it leaves him feeling drained.

By the time he's fixed them both food, he's recovered his calm and Ezio doesn't notice the slight tensing of his grip on the tray when Leonardo sees the wince he isn't meant to notice; glimpses the discomfort on Ezio's face for the briefest of moments when he tries to move. Leonardo feels his pain as keenly as if it were his own, because in a way it _is_ \- when the one he's given his heart to is hurting, it's only to be expected he'll hurt too.

Slowly, Ezio gets better. Over the next couple of days he's able to sit up with only minimal help from Leonardo, and by the end of the week he can stand - though Leonardo is there to catch him when his legs buckle and helps him back onto the bed, Ezio's face ashen grey and faintly beaded with sweat. He turns away from Leonardo, his mouth set in an angry line, and it's like a slap in the face to the artist. He turns and leaves and lets Ezio sulk it out.

But Ezio only grows worse as the days go on and Leonardo finds himself growing increasingly more annoyed at Ezio's petulant tone and childish sulks every time he pushes his body too far and is surprised when it fails him.

"Please, Ezio," Leonardo begs him, "You're trying too much too fast. Your body can't cope."

"I'm the one who decides what I can and can't do," Ezio says stiffly, rising from the bed and gripping the back of the nearby chair. Leonardo sees the tension in his fingers, the knuckles white. "I have to be in control, Leonardo. You wouldn't understand."

And instead of enlightening him, Ezio ignores him and looks at his feet, taking steady steps despite his shallow breaths. Leonardo retreats and leaves him to it, but is there to pick up the pieces when a tired and frustrated Ezio calls to him from the floor by the door, fists clenched from the pain and the effort of not hitting something, Leonardo suspects.

Where before their silence in the evening was companionable, now they become tense and Leonardo begins to dread the night, and having to share the bed with Ezio. The last couple of nights Ezio has ignored him completely, head turned away, and Leonardo is sure that were his side not still healing, Ezio would turn away from him completely. How can he tell Ezio what it does to him, how it breaks his heart a little more every day to see him so frustrated and angry? How can Ezio ever understand that his anger pierces Leonardo's soul as surely and precisely as if it were his mechanical blade?

Leonardo isn't sure he can face another night of silence with blame rolling off Ezio in waves, though Leonardo is doing all he can to help him; as Annetta banks the fires, instead of shrugging off his jacket as he normally does to prepare for bed, he pulls on his cloak.

He can feel Ezio watching as he fastens it.

"Where are you going?" the younger man asks suspiciously.

"Out," Leonardo replies shortly. In the burnished bronze mirror in front of him, he sees Ezio’s face pinch up.

"I can see that," he says. "Why?"

"Because I want to, Ezio." Leonardo can't meet his eyes or look at him or he knows his courage will fail him and he won't go out after all and instead will spend the evening in silent misery.

Leonardo expects Ezio to put up more of a fight, to protest, but there is nothing from him except more silence. When Leonardo chances a glance behind him, Ezio isn't even looking at him. Feeling his heart lurch, Leonardo turns and leaves.

Even at this hour, there's more happening on the Venetian streets than in his bottega, and it hurts that there is more said to him in cheerful greetings on the short walk to the main plaza than in the past few days entirely by Ezio. But even in his hurt, Leonardo knows he's not at fault and a small nugget of wounded pride and self defence still survives, strengthening his resolve not to head back just yet. After all, silence will be all that's waiting for him.

The lights of the tavern are warm and inviting through the shutters, the sound of song and chatter floating across the plaza towards him, and Leonardo heads inside and slips into a seat in the corner. He hasn't been in a tavern like this for a long while, and it takes him a moment to grow accustomed to the noise.

A girl brings him an ale and he pays her wordlessly, eyes scanning the room thoughtfully. The drink does its job, however, and there's a warmth flooding through him, making his fingertips tingle. It feels the same as the thrill he gets whenever Ezio touches him; he pushes the thought aside. He doesn't want to think about Ezio, because then he'll feel guilty.

Gradually he feels more at ease and orders another drink, though he doesn't join in any conversations with his neighbours or any of the cheerful sing-alongs that happen. He nurses his drink and lets his mind wander.

When he gets home a few hours later, Ezio is asleep and Leonardo gets into bed, though the distance between them feels so much greater than before Ezio's injury.

The next morning, Ezio is sulkier and more stubborn than usual. When Leonardo offers him his arm to help him to a chair in the workshop, Ezio ignores it.

"You look rough," he says, and Leonardo suppresses a sigh.

"I didn't do anything, Ezio. I barely drank at all," he says mildly.

"You could have fooled me," he says snidely as he settles into a chair and Leonardo has to make a real effort not to retort something equally offensive. He knows Ezio doesn't mean to hurt him.

"Do you have a problem with my going out last night, Ezio?" He asks calmly, doing his best to keep his face neutral. Ezio looks sullen.

"Of course not," he replies. "You can do what you like."

"So why are you angry?" Leonardo asks, watching him closely and if anything the question only makes him more annoyed.

"I'm not angry," Ezio says stiffly, betraying his anger plain as daylight.

"Ezio, I've known you for eight years. I know you, and I know that you're upset about something."

"Well I'm sure I've got absolutely nothing to be upset about," Ezio replies, his voice laden with sarcasm. "Only the fact I can't walk, can't leave the house, and am a wanted man can't possibly be reason enough, can it?"

"If you're going to be foul, I'm not going to talk to you," Leonardo says quietly, not looking at Ezio and gripping his paintbrush so tightly his knuckles have gone white.

"Fine," he hears Ezio say, and the sound of him leaving the room reaches him at his easel and it's all Leonardo can do not to give in to the pain that tears his heart ever more roughly into a thousand tiny pieces. He stabs his paintbrush violently into the paint, watching the bristles bend with the force of it and twitch as his hand shakes. He doesn't trust himself to paint just yet so he stands a while longer, trying to calm himself by mixing a perfect shade of green for the hills in his painting. When his hands stop shaking and his breathing returns to normal, he resumes his work.

He works for a good few hours, but where usually he loses himself in his work he feels agitated, restless, like there's an itch in the back of his mind that he just can't reach. He steps outside at lunch, letting Annetta take care of Ezio - he just hopes the younger man won't tear into her quite as much as he does Leonardo. He watches the water of the canal, turned brown and murky in this area of the city, and tries to regain his composure and peace of mind. It's difficult to convince himself that Ezio's behaviour doesn't bother him when so much of his time is spent just wishing he was there with him.

He delays returning to the bottega for as long as possible and when he gets back Ezio is sitting in the workshop in his customary place by the bookshelf. At the sight of him with a tome in his hands, Leonardo thinks maybe he's feeling better and he smiles.

"Ezio," he says as he rushes over to him, hoping his relief doesn't show too much. "You're looking much stronger, I -"

But Ezio doesn't even look at him or give any sign that he's even heard Leonardo, and the artist trails off, hurt. He swallows the lump that rises in his throat and turns away, picking up his satchel and his sketching equipment; he heads to the door and calls to Annetta that he won't be back for dinner. In all of this Ezio still doesn't look up - only the slight tensing of his jaw shows he's even aware of what's going on. But Leonardo steps outside and, shutting the door firmly behind him, heads to the Rialto Bridge, wanting to lose himself in observing the ever-changing mass of humanity that gathers there.

He's barely aware of time passing, sitting there by the canal edge and simply watching, sometimes noting something or sketching. He doesn't notice the time until the light starts to fade, and he knows it must be getting late; instead of heading home, he makes for a tavern.

The night passes much as the one before: he drinks a little, content to simply observe his surroundings, and then he goes home and collapses into one of the chairs in the workshop. The next day Ezio says nothing to him, and again Leonardo escapes the house and at dusk finds himself in a tavern.

The cycle goes on for about a week and the only thing that changes is that Ezio walks further and for longer. Leonardo wants to make amends, he wants to be reconciled, but every time he tries Ezio either ignores him or complains about anything and everything. Whenever Leonardo feels sorry for him and tries to help Ezio responds with a biting comment or two that cut Leonardo to the bone.

He finds himself in the closest tavern once again but this time he's not alone for long - a familiar figure with dirty blonde hair and patched up clothes sits opposite him.

"Didn't think you were the sort to hang around in taverns, Leonardo," Francesco says with a smile, watching Leonardo closely. Leonardo suppresses a sigh; he's not in the mood to talk to Francesco.

"I'm not," he says rather tersely, picking up his mug only to find that it's rather pitifully empty.

"Let me get you one," Francesco says, waving over a serving girl. "For old times' sake."

"Please don't," Leonardo says, "you really don't have to-"

But Francesco is pushing a glass of red wine into his hands and Leonardo has to accept it now it's been paid for, so he takes it with good grace. He can't help but feel that Francesco should be able to afford better red than this, and get a new set of clothes and groom himself better - though maybe that's exactly the reason why he looks so shabby now, he reasons with himself.

"How is it we keep meeting each other?" Leonardo says. He doesn't try and keep the disbelief and the note of annoyance from his voice. At his words Francesco just shrugs.

"Happy coincidences," he says cheerfully, taking a large gulp of wine. "Venezia isn't that big, is it, after all."

"It's bigger than Vinci."

"Thank God," Francesco says with a smile and takes another drink. He looks pointedly at Leonardo's cup and the artist raises it to his lips to drink, not really knowing what to make of the fact he's sitting in a tavern with the one person he swore he never wanted to see again. One of them, anyway.

Somehow he seems to forget who he's sitting with, or at least what he did, and he finds himself laughing at some of the things Francesco says. The sensation of laughter bubbling out of his throat feels slightly surreal, as if he's out of practice; the thought makes him sad and Ezio's face flickers in his mind for a moment before it disappears and he goes back to listening to Francesco's stories.

He doesn't realise quite how long they sit there, drinking wine and talking (though Leonardo mainly listens) until most others have gone home. Only when it falls suddenly quiet does Leonardo realise the time and he hurriedly gets to his feet, lurching slightly and grabbing the table. Hell, he drank more than he thought; his face feels uncomfortably flushed as he looks at Francesco to bid him goodnight.

The night air is warm, though cooler than the tavern, and Leonardo walks quickly - though a couple of times he has to stop and let the world right itself as it spins around him. Finally he makes it home and lets himself in, stumbling a little over the threshold. His mind is a whirl of thoughts and ideas and flashes of guilt,but he's too exhausted to do much beyond undress and collapse on the bed.

As he removes his things he freezes, his spine tingling, and he knows Ezio is awake. Whether he's been waiting for him or has woken up, he can't know, but his hands still on his half-unbuttoned shirt as he looks over at the bed where his friend lies.

"Ezio," he says quietly. Ezio doesn't move, doesn't flinch, doesn't say a word, and Leonardo's whisper dies in the empty air. With a sigh and a heavy heart he finishes undressing and climbs into the bed, not looking at Ezio's perfectly still body. His eyelids are beginning to droop but he forces himself to turn and face Ezio and starts when he sees the glint of Ezio's eyes looking at him.

"Why don't you talk to me anymore?" he asks and the words hang there for a long while, tentative and mournful and Leonardo hates how desperately he wants to hear Ezio say something, anything, just not this unbearable silence.

But Ezio merely closes his eyes and turns away and a little more of Leonardo’s heart cracks and even the numbness from the alcohol doesn't stop it hurting.

***

When he meets Francesco in the street the next evening as the sun is turning the water of the Rialto golden, he doesn't hesitate in accepting his invitation of joining him for a drink.

Only one, he tells himself. Tonight, he will sort things out with Ezio. He doesn't think he can go much longer with the silent shadow Ezio has become; he misses his friend.

But then Francesco is so charming and despite Leonardo's good sense telling him to be wary, to keep his distance, being with Francesco is _fun._ He finds himself laughing and joining in, and then some others join their table and it's perfectly natural to accept another drink, and slowly he forgets why he even needs to go home. It's not like Ezio needs him anymore, seeing as he completely ignores him now. Why shouldn't he stay and enjoy himself?

The wine flows and their group grows in number and Leonardo can't remember the last time he enjoyed himself this much. He doesn't think of afternoons spent with Ezio in Florence, both absorbed in what they were doing but so at ease with each other's company; of nights spent drinking and laughing in front of a fire and the warmth of Ezio's firm body when they go to sleep or when they hug; he doesn't think about them because they _hurt,_ and he's here to numb the pain. (Of course he forgets that it does nothing to numb the pain - how can it when the pain is deep inside of him, in his heart? Nothing he ever does can truly hide it.)

Steadily it grows dark outside and Leonardo becomes tipsier until his head begins to hurt and he has to close his eyes against the spinning room in case his now-heaving stomach decides to churn its contents up and out of him.

A pair of hands grips him and he looks up blearily, expecting Ezio and opens his mouth to say his name, only the eyes looking at him are blue not brown, the face skinnier and the hands on his arms not as thick and strong, and his pleased exclamation dies on his tongue.

"Come on, Leonardo," Francesco says as if from far away. "Let's get you home."

"Don't want to," Leonardo mutters, dropping his head back down to the table, and the laughter of the others makes his head pound and his sight turn white for a moment and he thinks he truly will be sick. Why did he drink so much? How? Ezio wouldn't have let him -

Francesco hauls him up,holding him against him while he sways. "Come on, Leonardo," he says, gently coaxing, and Leonardo does as he's told. He follows Francesco obediently, though the walk across the tavern feels like the hardest thing he's ever done - miles long and littered with obstacles. It's only Francesco's grip on his forearm that keeps him going straight.

When they get outside the night air is a shock and he gulps it down greedily like the wine he was drinking so happily only a few hours before. He's so tired, he could lie down right here and sleep...

But Francesco has other ideas and gives Leonardo a gentle but firm tug. "Come on, Leonardo. You need to be home."

 _Yes, home,_ Leonardo thinks. Home is a good place. He follows Francesco unquestioningly, letting himself be led like a lamb. He doesn't even know where they're going.

It's only when they reach the little square near his bottega does he recognise where they are, and even then it's hazy. He turns to Francesco with a smile to thank him, he can find his way, but the words stick in his throat when he sees Francesco's face. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide and his mouth ever so slightly open, audible breaths ghosting over those soft plump lips and chest heaving as if he's been running.

Suddenly Francesco tugs him to one side and they're in a tiny unlit alleyway leading off the square and Francesco is backing him into a wall, knocking the air from his lungs and then his lips - _those sinfully soft lips, oh, they haven't changed a bit_ \- are on Leonardo's, questing,  seeking, his tongue licking and searching and Leonardo opens his mouth in surprise and shock and then his tongue is _claiming_ his mouth; his hands are fisting in Leonardo's hair, knocking his cap off. Leonardo stands there for a few moments, unsure what to do as Francesco's tongue roams his mouth, sucking and biting. And then Francesco gives a breathy little moan and rolls his hips and Leonardo can't mistake the feel of Francesco's hardness against his thigh; with a strangled noise he feels the blood rush downwards and grabs Francesco's shoulders roughly, nails digging into his shoulders.

Francesco finally lets him breathe, his mouth roving to lick along his jaw,  down his neck, to nip at his shoulder and back up to his earlobe. Leonardo knows there's a reason he doesn't like this, he doesn't want this, but he can't quite think of it at the moment. He can't even focus on Francesco's face, so he holds on for dear life as sensations he hasn't felt in so long, too long, come flooding back and threaten to overwhelm him. He still feels sick and his head still pounds uncomfortably; despite the rapidly increasing pleasure coiling up inside him when Francesco's hand trails down to his rapidly hardening cock he tries to push him away. He can't see, can't think; Francesco grabs his hand where they push ineffectually at him and holds them as he continues to nuzzle at Leonardo's crotch, coaxing him to full hardness.

"Leonardo," Francesco says hoarsely, standing back up and plundering his mouth as his other hand - the one not pinning Leonardo's to the wall - reaches down into his breeches to fondle him. He pulls away and his breathing is hard, eyes so dark there's almost no blue left, and his grip on Leonardo's cock is terrifyingly pleasurable. Leonardo tries to focus on his face but doesn't succeed; his head is spinning from the alcohol and the sensations assaulting him. Francesco's clever fingers work their way back and there's the ghost of a finger on his perineum and Leonardo is reminded of being twenty again, back in Firenze, so desperate to make a name for himself. Suddenly he feels very, very sick.

"No," he mutters weakly, doing his best to pull free from Francesco's grip and failing; " _No,_ " he says, more forcefully this time and Francesco steps back as if in shock. Leonardo fumbles with himself, shame colouring his cheeks pink as he tries to tuck himself away.

Oh god, he's still drunk, but the familiar loathing is coming back to him when he looks at Francesco, who's looking suitably debauched. It makes Leonardo’s stomach curdle and his stomach heaves; he breathes and forces his stomach to calm.

"Don't talk to me again," he says as firmly as he can, and is relieved when he doesn't slur. "Don't find me, don't come near me, and don't talk to me again. I'm done with you, Francesco. I'm not going back."

And with considerable effort he turns and hurries out of the alley across the square to the street that leads to his bottega. He stops halfway down the narrow cobbled road to vomit violently, bringing up his insides so completely and utterly that he's left shaking afterwards. And yet the weight in the pit of his stomach remains.

Gingerly he steps around his puddle of sick and, still shaking, finally reaches home. He heads to the kitchen to find the jug of water and drinks from it, taking tiny sips so as not to unsettle his stomach and rinses his mouth out. His hands stop trembling and he heads back into the workshop only to do a double take when he sees Ezio standing there, fully dressed. Had he been there the whole time?

He's just watching him, his face devoid of expression, though his lips are slightly parted and Leonardo  can see the rise and fall of his chest under the robes and his breathing quickens to match Ezio's. He is beautiful in the moonlight; it doesn't matter that he's saying nothing, doing nothing. He's still beautiful.

"Ezio," Leonardo says quietly, tripping forwards towards him. Ezio catches him to steady him and Leonardo relishes in the feeling of Ezio's warm hands around his forearms after so long being ignored. His heart leaps and despite his previous discomfort he feels his still half-hard cock give a little twitch. He looks up at Ezio, who stares back.

"You're drunk." It's not a question.

"Yes," Leonardo replies, perfectly serious. Ezio is starting to scowl and Leonardo can't bear it. He longs to make Ezio smile again, like he used to be able to.

"You've every right to get drunk every night if you want, Leonardo," he says, his voice barely above a whisper and almost a hiss, "but at least be responsible." He licks his lips and glances away. "And I've missed you."

Leonardo has been studying his face intently, relishing the feeling of being this close to him again after so long. He hesitates only a second after Ezio looks back at him.

He presses his lips to Ezio's, gasping at the sensation of them - rough and chapped yet so soft underneath his own, pliant as he presses deeper into the kiss, all his longing coming pouring out of him as if he can tell Ezio how much he needs him, loves him, simply through the kiss.

But Ezio's lips are not moving underneath his, and his eyes are closed but seem to be scrunched up as if in pain; his hands have gone slack around Leonardo’s wrists and when the painter realises he backs away, pulling free from Ezio's grip. He offers no resistance, and suddenly Leonardo feels sicker than he's ever felt before in his life; he can't breathe and his vision clouds, his ears ringing loudly. His stomach feels as if it's going to rip itself apart, it's twisting and roiling so violently.

He looks up from the floor, his breathing heavy, trying to think of something he could possibly say to make this better and wishing he could die right there.

"I -" he tries but his voice breaks because Ezio's expression has turned hard and there's something glinting in his eyes as he looks at him that Leonardo can't name, but it makes his insides constrict even further, so much he can't breathe. "I'm sorry," he finally gets out, voice barely more than a rough whisper.

Ezio says nothing, only turns from him and scoops up his pack before leaving through the back doorway. Leonardo is too numb to do anything but let him go; when he's completely alone again it's too much and retches again over a bowl, though his stomach is so empty it hurts. Even though he brings up nothing he heaves over the bowl, his insides burning, as if he can purge himself of this _longing_ , this sick thing inside him.

When he's done, sweaty and quivering, Leonardo forces himself to his bed and lies down; the sheets still smell of Ezio.

He's gone because Leonardo kissed him.

He's gone because Leonardo got too drunk to hide what he feels.

He's gone because Leonardo is not natural, he's wrong, twisted, sick -

He's gone completely, no matter what for, and Leonardo doesn't know if he'll be back.


	4. Chapter 4

That night is one of anguish and pain for Leonardo, leaving his sleep broken and disjointed whenever he manages to slip under at all. Every time he closes his eyes he sees the look on Ezio's face when he pulled away, sees his retreating back as he ran away, and he thinks he will die of shame. 

He doesn't manage to fall sleep properly until well after the sun has come up and only then out of sheer exhaustion. 

He wakes when he hears Annetta let herself in but he doesn't call out or move. He can't bear the thought of talking to anyone at the moment. She knocks softly and pokes her head around the door a little later but he keeps his eyes shut, not quite ready to face her yet.

His head hurts and stomach cramps with emptiness but it's nothing compared to the pain he feels steadily burning away in his chest. It feels like he's slowly being torn in two, the deep ache settling into his lungs and his bones so that every breath he takes makes him flinch at the pain of it. He'd never thought it could hurt this much.

He lies there for a while longer, until the smell of whatever Annetta is cooking draws him out. One look at his face and she doesn't say anything, only folds him into her arms and holds him for a moment as Leonardo struggles to keep control of his breathing. She releases him and sets a bowl of soup in front of him with a slice of buttered bread; it smells so good he thinks he could eat it all. But he finds it doesn't taste of much and the bread turns to a pasty mulch in his mouth that he can hardly swallow, and he sets his spoon down. He apologises to Annetta and hurries out of the kitchen to his little inner courtyard, shaded by the other taller buildings around and the single lemon tree that grows in next door's garden. He can smell the citrus scent of the waxy leaves, see the jewel-bright fruits in the emerald leaves that poke up above the wall.

He simply sits there for a while, eyes closed, and tries to let his mind go blank. It doesn't work, so he attempts to sketch, but nothing comes out right and he tears the pages up, watching the parchment flutter slowly to the ground. He sits there with his head in his hand and scraps of paper littered on the ground by his feet; the world around him goes on, uncaring of the fact his whole world feels like it has shattered and is falling down around his ears.

How could he have been so stupid? He should never have let himself get so drunk, should never have joined Francesco in the first place. He knows what Francesco is capable of, knows what he’s like - did he learn nothing, eight years ago? Is he really willing to lose everything he’s worked so hard for? Does he want the stink of what happened to follow him for the rest of his life?

And yet he knows he would give it all up in a heartbeat, would spend his eternity in whatever hell or purgatory awaits sinners like him without even a second thought, if only he could know that Ezio was safe and happy. He knows he would sell his soul to Lucifero himself if it meant he could have Ezio by his side.

Angrily he tugs at his hair - he needs to stop thinking like this. He’s done enough damage as it is - Ezio is gone and who knows when he will be back, if ever? Leonardo drove him away and such thoughts will do nobody any good, least of all Leonardo. It’s punishment enough that Ezio is gone and because of him; he doesn’t need to torture himself with thoughts of things that can never be.

He stands then, leaving the parchment scraps on the ground, trembling in the breeze from the canals, and heads back into the dark of the bottega. Annetta has heated some water for him while he’s been outside and he washes himself from head to toe, submerging his head and holding his breath til he’s light-headed, scraping away at his skin as if he could rid himself of his desire that way; when he’s done his skin is pink and raw, but still he feels sullied. He remembers the feel of Francesco’s hands on him and feels sick. He pulls his clothes on hastily; he feels more himself once he’s dressed in his short cape and his hat is pulled firmly on over the still-damp strands of his hair. 

He calls out a goodbye to Annetta and heads out into the sunshine, squinting against the brightness. He will leave a message for Ezio with the assassin’s friends - he may not want to see Leonardo right now, but there are others he will have gone to, of that Leonardo is sure. 

His first stop is La Rosa della Virtù. Not only is Sister Teodora a good friend of Ezio’s and a worthy ally, Leonardo knows how fond Ezio is of the  _ other  _ services provided there. It’s some of the hardest moments of his friendship with Ezio - doing his best to laugh along as Ezio regales him with stories of his exploits, making sure not to show just how much he hates each new donna that charms Ezio into her arms, because those nameless, faceless girls have the one thing that Leonardo cannot, the one thing he wants above all else. 

But Teodora hasn’t seen him, or at least, won’t tell Leonardo if she has, and he believes her - her eyes crease with worry just for a moment, a split second, before her face is once again a mask of calm authority, but it’s enough. He asks her to pass on his message to Ezio when she does see him, and she assures him she will; he ignores the tightness in his belly as he leaves the brothel.

Next he heads to the docks where he hopes to find the Thieves - surely Rosa will know where he is. Ezio has told him plenty about her, more so than any other woman, and Leonardo knows he is jealous of his friend’s affection for her. He tastes bile in his throat when he realises - by rights he should be pleased for them, but instead he feels only a grim satisfaction that even  _ she  _ cannot hold Ezio enough to keep him from straying. He finds a group of Thieves playing dice by the water’s edge and laughing uproariously; he makes sure to keep a hand on his money pouch as he asks after Ezio. They regard him suspiciously at first but they seem to recognise his name, and one runs off to find their master. 

Ezio has told him about Antonio and the man seems friendly enough, but it appears that he too has heard nothing from Ezio since he last left the city months ago. Leonardo tries not to let his worry show.

“He has spoken of a girl, Rosa,” he says, swallowing thickly. “Perhaps she knows where he is.”

Antonio gives a shrug. “I will ask her, but I do not think it likely. She wouldn’t be able to hide it if he’d spoken to her recently.” He gives a little grin. “Our Rosa is more smitten than she’d ever admit to us, at least.”

Leonardo forces himself to smile even though it feels as if his breakfast is threatening to make its way back up. “Just pass on my message if you see him, won’t you?” He takes his leave, mind whirling and throat uncomfortably tight. 

When even the courtesans in the street and the mercenaries on street corners all shake their heads, muttering words of sympathy and  _ no, messer _ , he feels close to tears. Of course he has no chance of finding his friend - Ezio has only survived this long by hiding, and if he doesn’t want to be found then he won’t be, at least not by Leonardo. The sun is starting to set now and he’s exhausted, so he sits by the water’s edge in the Piazza di San Marco, watching all the busy scribes and bankers and merchants rushing around carrying scrolls and ink and money pouches and important-looking documents with official seals. All of it passes by, all these souls threading and weaving around him, caught on the currents of their own lives, and he feels very small and very alone.

The sun has disappeared behind the buildings on the other side of the canal and it will be dark soon, so he forces himself to his feet and heads home. He lights all the candles in his bottega, filling it with warm light; perhaps Ezio is out there and will see it, and come home. But even as he thinks it he knows it is a fool’s hope. A bitter tear escapes and he wipes it away angrily, pulling his paints towards him and throwing himself into his work if only to ignore the ache in his heart and the emptiness of his bottega. He falls asleep as the sun is rising, collapsed into one of the chairs before the empty hearth. When he wakes he is stiff and uncomfortable, and there’s a moment of confusion as he looks around for Ezio before remembering that he’s gone. 

Somehow he makes it through the next day, and the next, and then a week. He still aches something awful, and it’s worse at night - he can control his thoughts during the day, but his sleeping mind breaks every barrier he tries to bind it with and tortures him with cruel fantasies. Sometimes they’re so realistic it really is as if Ezio is there lying beside him, his hands tracing Leonardo’s body, his jawline, his lips following the paths his fingers have wandered; or it’s Leonardo who is holding him, pressed against his muscled back, his tongue darting out to taste the sweat that’s beading in the hollow of his spine as they move together -

He cries out as he wakes, swollen and aching and ashamed.

But somehow he survives and he learns to ignore the images that mock him at night. He knows Annetta watches him closely during those next few weeks that seem to go by so slowly and yet so fast, the world passing him by while he’s trapped like a mayfly in amber; she watches how much he eats and leaves more food for him, though he knows she is always disappointed when she returns the next day to find it untouched. She watches him paint and sketch, seeing if his art has left him - funnily enough, it hasn’t, and it almost seems like he has  _ more  _ inspiration, it’s brimming out of him and leaves him drained and exhausted at the end of the day but he has never been more productive. He knows she watches the bags under his eyes grow deeper and his hair and beard become scraggly and unkempt, until she forces him into the kitchen and goes at him with a razor until he looks presentable once more. It’s thanks to Annetta that he’s still functioning, he supposes.

And then one day there’s a knock at the door and Leonardo freezes, his paintbrush still held aloft and his heart beginning to hammer rapidly against his chest, which is squeezing painfully with a hope he can only just repress. But that knock did sound like Ezio’s, firm and deliberate. He breathes out in a little puff and sets his paintbrush down, feeling like a flustered tween all of a sudden.

He pulls open the door, squinting against the bright summer sunshine, ready to throw his arms around his friend because  _ how he’s missed him- _

But his smile dies on his lips and his blood runs cold, his heart stuttering to a painful stop. 

It’s not Ezio at the door, but Francesco.


	5. Chapter 5

Francesco is looking worse for wear, his clothes even dirtier and more worn than before, but he’s wearing a very self-satisfied smirk and Leonardo feels sick at the sight of it.

“What are you doing here?” he says through bloodless lips, his grip so tight on the door his knuckles have turned white. “I told you to stay away.”

Francesco laughs. It sets Leonardo’s teeth on edge and makes his hair stand on edge and for the first time in a long while, he wants to know how it would feel to be Ezio, to sink his blade into Francesco’s white throat and silence that mocking laugh forever.

“Is everything alright, Messer Leonardo?” Annetta asks from the workshop. She’s observing him, as she has the past few weeks - she sees him holding the door and he forces himself to release it and he straightens, breathing in deeply. He shoots her a quick smile.

“Just fine, Annetta,” he says. “I’ll be down in a bit.” She nods and leaves the room, her eyes narrowing as she glances back at Francesco in the doorway. Leonardo turns back to Francesco and he is glad when his voice doesn’t break. “I mean it, Francesco. Leave me alone. I told you I won’t go back, not when I’ve made it this far.”

Francesco sneers, his lithe body resting against the doorframe too close for comfort but Leonardo refuses to back away; he will not let Francesco sully an inch more of his bottega than he can help. “But that’s it, Leonardo,” he says, and there’s a whining undertone to his voice and Leonardo feels repulsion towards this spoilt man-child on his doorstep. “You’ve made it. Look at you in your fine silks and velvets. That’s not really very fair now, is it?” he grins at Leonardo, whose skin crawls.

“Whatever you want from me, Francesco, I cannot give it to you,” he says quietly. “Go and ask your father for money, if that’s what you’re after.”

Francesco laughs again. “But I’m asking  _ you. _ We’re friends, after all.”

Leonardo closes his eyes for a moment. This cannot be happening, please,  _ please _ , let this be a dream; but when he opens them again Francesco is still there, still leering at him with those cherubic eyes and full lips that are now puffy and cruel.

“We are not friends, Francesco.”

“Come, Leonardo-”

“No,” he says firmly. “Don’t do this, Francesco. Don’t drag us back there.”

Francesco’s face has contorted into an expression of fury and Leonardo’s heart is beating nine to the dozen in fear, but he doesn’t step back. “You really think you can leave it behind?” he hisses. “You think everyone’s forgotten?”

“I know they have,” Leonardo says, sounding much more certain than he feels. “Now go, or I’ll call the Watch.”

Francesco doesn’t move, only stares at him, as if considering his words, before stepping back and raising his hands as if in supplication. “No need for that, Leonardo. I’ll go.” He steps back away from the bottega, and the fury is gone from his face, to be replaced by another grin. “I’ll be seeing you around, Leo.” And with that he turns and is gone.

Leonardo shuts the door and immediately leans back against it, his knees suddenly weak and trembling with adrenaline and fear. He can almost hear the mob, smell their bloodlust, feel them closing in around him -

“Messer Leonardo.” Annetta is there and she’s pulling him into a seat, pushing a cup of grappa into his hands and forcing it down him. It burns and leaves tears stinging his eyes, but he can breathe again afterwards. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

A choked out sound leaves him, halfway between a laugh and a sob. “You could say that, Annetta.”

“Who is he?”

“Someone I would much rather forget.” he sighs and looks down at the empty glass, rolling it between his hands until Annetta plucks it away and refills it. He gratefully accepts it and shoots it back, prepared for the burn this time. “I knew him when I was younger. We knew each other well in Vinci and he went with me to Firenze, but...we fell out.” Leonardo doesn’t think about the other two; faces he has erased from his memory. He’d thought he’d left them all behind when he moved to Venice, he’d thought it could be a new start, but perhaps Francesco is right. Perhaps there is no escaping it.

“He’s a nasty piece of work,” Annetta says, her eyes soft as she looks at him. “You’re better off staying away from that  _ figlio d’un cane _ , if you’ll pardon me for saying so.” 

Leonardo smiles weakly. “Nothing would make me happier,” he says. She pours him one last shot of grappa and bustles off to the kitchen, no doubt to prepare him some food he probably won’t be able to eat, but he lets her. He looks at his reflection in the yellow liquid before tossing it back, grimacing. 

He wishes Ezio were here. He would know what to say, what to do. He doesn’t know about what happened in Florence - all the furore had died down by the time he had met Madonna Maria - and that is the way he would like to keep it. But while Annetta knows him probably better than he knows himself, it’s not the same.

He smiles as he remembers Ezio walking into his workshop for the first time eight years ago, already beautiful enough to make Leonardo’s palms go clammy and bring a flush into his cheeks. He was so young but he moved with the confidence of some deity made flesh. Even now he forgets how young Ezio is.

He hopes that he’ll come back to him soon, and more importantly that wherever he is, he’s  _ safe _ . Leonardo will wait for as long as it takes, so long as Ezio is yet living. 

*

It isn’t the last Leonardo sees of Francesco. In the next couple of weeks he turns up twice more at the door and both times he asks for money, but Leonardo holds fast. He knows if he gives in, Francesco won’t stop until he has bled him dry, and Leonardo will not let that happen. He wants nothing to do with the man, and when he turns up again a week later, Leonardo has been sitting in darkness with the blinds closed and doesn’t answer the door; he hopes Francesco will think he’s out and will go away. He seems undeterred at first, but eventually he leaves - though not before pressing a note under the door.

Leonardo makes no move to pick it up, staring at it as if it might suddenly burst into flame, but eventually he retrieves it. The words make his blood turn to ice in his veins and he throws the note on the kitchen fire, his trembling hands curled into fists in anger and worry as he watches the flames consume the hateful thing.

_ I haven’t forgotten and neither have the others. You can’t ever be clean of it, Leonardo, you can’t change what we are. _

“I am nothing like you,” he whispers to himself in the dark.

He thinks about leaving Venice, but that would mean leaving his clients with unfinished projects and consequently no payment; but worse, it would mean leaving Ezio. If Ezio came back and found him gone - no, Leonardo cannot leave. He cannot go to the Watch either, though, and Francesco knows it - if he did, all Francesco would have to do is tell them about the incident in Firenze and it would all be over for Leonardo. In that, Francesco is right: he can’t ever wipe that slate clean. Nothing ever came of it, but still his name is blackened by it.

He hasn’t seen Ezio in two months now and he misses him with a permanent physical ache. He wishes he could just  _ explain _ \- apologise - if Ezio still didn’t wish to see him after that, he’d understand and he’d come to terms with it. But he cannot bring himself to believe that Ezio truly wants nothing more to do with him.

After all, they’ve gone longer without seeing each other, he reasons. He’s just caught up on a mission and when he’s done he’ll have forgotten all about it. Leonardo knows it’s unlikely, but that’s the thing about fool’s hopes: it’s far nicer to be a fool and allowed to hope, than face up to the reality.

One evening he’s sitting sketching out new designs for a flying machine, filling the margins with mathematical sums and equations and his brain whirring with ideas, when once again he hears the dreaded knock on the door. Annetta has long since gone home and he is alone in the bottega, save for the wine he’s been drinking too much of recently beside him. His heart starts pounding and he knows who it is at the door - it was only a matter of time until he came back. Carefully he shuts his notebook, sitting still as a statue as Francesco bangs on the door again.

“Leonardo! I know you’re in there!” His words are slightly slurred and Leonardo screws his eyes shut for a moment before standing and heading to the door. He cannot give Francesco the satisfaction of  _ hiding  _ from him, and who knows what the man may start shouting about. Leonardo knows all too well that there are plenty of ears greedy for gossip who will be talking about the stranger who keeps turning up on Leonardo’s doorstep; the least he can do is make sure that’s  _ all  _ they have to talk about.

He opens the door and Francesco blinks in the sudden brightness, his eyes taking a moment to focus on Leonardo. He stinks of alcohol; Leonardo can see the fumes coming off him in waves and there is a wine stain on his doublet.

“Why are you here, Francesco?” he says quietly. He is so  _ tired. _

Francesco gives his usual leery grin. “For old time’s sake, Leo. I need your help.”

“I cannot help you, Francesco,” he says slowly. “I am not going to give you money, not this time or any other times you come knocking.”

Francesco laughs and his hand comes to rest at his hip, his long fingers tapping against the worn material of his hose. “I thought you might say that, Leo. But really -” he gives another laugh and Leonardo’s skin crawls at the sound of it, and his next words make his body turn cold - “you don’t really have a choice. I met an old friend of ours - you remember Jacopo, don’t you? I remember you were so  _ fond  _ of him-”

“Leave,” Leonardo hisses. “I will call the Watch, I swear to God Francesco-”

“Call them,” he says, and suddenly there’s a flash of metal at his hip and Leonardo glances down to see he’s holding a knife, long and thin and dangerous. “I can tell them all about Jacopo and Lionardo and the others.” Leonardo cannot move, his eyes fixed on the knife and Francesco’s words rooting him to the spot. Francesco brings the blade up to the light and shrugs, stepping away from the door. “In fact, maybe I’ll tell them anyway. After all, those people you paint for should know where their paintings have been, what painted them. Maybe then you wouldn’t be so  _ high and mighty,  _ Leo-”

He’s turning away, tripping slightly on the stair, and Leonardo lets out a strangled noise. “Francesco, no,” he managed to get out, his heart battering fitfully against his ribs like a bird in a cage and his whole body numb. “Please, no, I’ll - I’ll give you money - here -” He tries to untie his money pouch but Francesco only laughs.

“It’s too late, little Leo. I think the Arengo would like to know what stews in its streets - you can’t deny what you are, Leo.” He’s stopped and he moves towards Leonardo, a hand reaching up to his face; Leonardo flinches away but that hand only rests on his cheek and he forces himself not to move away, even though the smell of alcohol on Francesco’s breath is making him feel dizzy. “You can’t hide yourself forever.” His voice is soft as he whispers into Leonardo's ear, like a lover’s, and Leonardo remembers eight years ago, remembers the nights they’d spend together back in Vinci and the freedom of Firenze, the jealousy on Francesco’s face when Jacopo, young beautiful Jacopo and Lionardo with the face of Cupid, had become so firmly a part of Leonardo’s life -

“I will tell them,” Francesco whispers and Leonardo has to close his eyes against the sour stench of red wine on his breath, “I will tell them of your lust for men, how you like them young. Jacopo was hardly of age when you sodomised him, was he, little Leo?” his voice is taunting and bitter.

“I didn’t,” Leonardo whispers. He breathes in a great  shaky gasp. “If you do this, you implicate yourself, Francesco. Do you think they will not turn on you too?”

“Not if I repent,” he says, his grip tightening on Leonardo’s jaw. “I hear they grant leniency if you can point them in the direction of others.” He leans forward as if to kiss him but Leonardo pulls himself away, out of Francesco’s grip, and his eyes are hard and glitter dangerously as he looks at Leonardo. He turns and walks away, disappearing into the night.

Leonardo thinks he’s going to be sick and his whole body is trembling. “Francesco, wait,” he calls and begins stumbling after him because oh God, if Francesco tells them, it’s all over for him, he’ll be lynched before he can even have his sham of a trial and he’ll never see his mother again, Vinci,  _ Ezio - _

A figure in white melts out of the shadows in front of him and Leonardo stops, frozen in place by the apparition. And then his heart soars because he’d know that face anywhere, it’s Ezio, come back to him -

But then his heart plummets and his stomach seems to drop right out of him, sinking heavy like a stone. 

Ezio is watching him, face pulled into a snide sneer and eyes hard. Leonardo doesn't know what he can possibly say to him so he says nothing; he doubts he could have formed words even had he known what to say. The cruel look on Ezio's face has transformed him; dressed in his white robes he could be some angel of hell, come to bring Leonardo's judgement down upon him. It's heart-stopping, Ezio's normally kind features transformed into this twisted, bitter thing. 

He drops to his knees before him, mute and dumb, and Ezio turns and disappears into the night, following Francesco’s footsteps. Leonardo cannot move; he has turned to stone, his whole body refusing to obey him and yet trembling like an aspen leaf in the wind. He can only stare after where Ezio disappeared as fear, love, guilt and shame pulse through his body with each beat of his heart.

He’s still kneeling there when Ezio returns, and there’s a long splatter of blood on the formerly pristine white of his sleeve. At the sight of him Leonardo scrambles to his feet, his hands reaching for his friend unconsciously, but the hardness of Ezio’s eyes stops him from touching him.

“Ezio,” he whispers, his tongue curling around the word joyously because his friend is here, he’s in front of him, just a foot away - “Ezio, I - you’re back, I was so worried -”

“He will not tell the authorities anything.” Ezio’s voice is hard, emotionless, but just the sound of it sets Leonardo’s heart aflutter and his stomach tightens - how he wants to reach out for him, reassure himself his friend is uninjured, is alive and real - but he doesn’t. He swallows thickly. 

“Thank you,” he says, a little more calmly and finding his voice is stronger than he thinks. He looks down at the droplets of crimson now adorning Ezio’s robes and feels slightly sick, but he doesn’t think about it, he doesn’t think about what they mean. “Thank you, Ezio. I -”

“That’s the thing about rats,” Ezio says suddenly. He voice is hard as flint and he isn’t looking at Leonardo, but then he does and his expression makes Leonardo’s insides quiver in fear. “When they leave their drains, they leave a bad smell.”

And then he’s gone and Leonardo is left alone in the darkness, tears threatening to escape and he squeezes his eyes shut; he doesn’t know if Ezio was talking about Francesco or Leonardo himself, and in his chest his heart seems to fracture and splinter all over again.


	6. Chapter 6

Much to Annetta’s consternation, Leonardo can feel himself slipping away. He can’t get out of bed some days; he feels constantly exhausted, lethargic, aimless. He hates it, he hates how he can’t even summon the energy to grab a pencil and sketch, but he can’t. Even the smallest exertion leaves him breathless and tired, and he only eats what Annetta brings him - and only then because she stands over him and watches him, until he’s finished every morsel. Most often he doesn’t know what he’s eating, it’s all tasteless to him, but it makes her happy so he eats it.

He knows he’s being a fool but he can’t help it. His heart seems weak, fluttering weakly in his chest where before it’s always been a strong and steady beat. When he holds his palm to his chest he can barely feel it, but he can feel it _inside -_ it feels like it’s been ripped out of him, torn apart and stuffed back inside. It feels as if it is filled with shards of glass that tear into it with every weak beat it gives, doing its best to keep going despite the fact that each pulse kills it a little more.

He should be happy - he’s safe. There is no-one here to reveal his secret; he has his reputation intact and his position is secure. He has nothing to worry him.

Except that once again he has no idea where Ezio is and this time it’s very likely that he may never see him again, may never have a chance to talk to him and explain, may never hear his friend’s voice again or see his lips curve into a smile or those eyes crinkle at him in amusement. He sees the rest of his life before him and he feels nothing, because Ezio will not be there to share it. Every sketch he creates, every painting, every machine he builds - he takes pleasure in sharing it with him. After he and Ezio became friends he wondered sometimes what his life had been like before Ezio had wandered reluctantly into it, but never questioned it - he loves Ezio with his entire soul. It’s not just his heart that’s been broken, kicked into the dirt, but his soul; and how can he pour his soul into his creations if half of it is gone?

He forces himself to get through each day - Annetta comes every morning and forces him out of bed; she places pen and paper, pencil and parchment, paints and brushes in front of him after he’s eaten and he tries - he _tries_ \- to work, but it’s always lacking. He sees her nod in approval at his attempts, though and he does his best to smile. She makes him eat dinner and wash and change his clothes and eventually it becomes enough of a habit that he can go through the motions without her standing over him. Sometimes he sits by the window and watches the canal flow sluggishly by; a couple of times Annetta has taken him out to enjoy the late summer sun. But even though he enjoys the feel of the warmth on his face he still feels...incomplete, broken. He feels like a china doll sometimes, brittle and fragile, immobile.

The days have started to grow shorter now and autumn approaches; it’s been weeks since Ezio left him like that, Francesco’s blood splattered on his cloak and hatred in his eyes. Just as before, it does get easier, even if each day leaves him drained and weary as an old man.

One evening when Annetta has gone and Leonardo can’t move from the chair where he’s sat, his body too weary and aching, he hears footsteps in his bottega and he knows in an instant who they belong to. But he’s tired and broken and he can’t bear for this to be a dream, not when his heart is already weakened, so he doesn’t move and doesn’t look round.

The footsteps seem to grow louder and then they stop; Leonardo can _smell_ him, can smell the musk of his sweat and the oil of his leathers and his heart makes a feeble attempt at jumping, but still he doesn’t look around. He’s had dreams this real before.

“Was it true?”

Oh, God, that’s Ezio’s voice, loud in the silence, rough and strong and deep; Leonardo buries his face in his hands because he knows what Ezio is talking about and this isn’t a dream, it’s a nightmare - he’d hoped Ezio would never know about Firenze, and now he can’t keep it from him -

“Yes,” Leonardo whispers, not caring that he’s probably going mad and speaking to a figment of his imagination. He can’t lie, not to his friend, even if he’s not real. His voice is muffled in his hands. “Yes, it was true, but I was young and Francesco was always…” Francesco was always so persuasive.

“Is it still true?”

That’s when Leonardo knows he is dreaming - he’s never heard Ezio sound so uncertain. Even when he came to him that night back in Florence when his family were taken, he’d been afraid but he’d still known he was going to try and get them back. Now he sounds...lost, like a boy, and Leonardo’s heart breaks all over again for the boy he was, for the man he’s become, for the way he loves him so.

He lets out a harsh and humourless chuckle. “Do I still lust after men?” he asks, bitterness in his voice. “Yes,” he whispers again. He hears Ezio take a step closer. “Don’t ask it,” he begs, desperation running hot through his veins, “please, do not ask it of me. You will not like the answer.” He screws his eyes shut tight and turns his face to the side; if he doesn’t look, the dream will not be broken and Ezio will stay.

The footsteps come even closer and the smell of him is so overpowering it sends thrills through his body but still he doesn’t open his eyes, not even when Ezio appears to be right in front of him; he can hear the whisper of his robes and the gentle clink of his armour. He feels warmth on his face and he lets out a little gasp - it feels so real - but doesn’t open his eyes, not even when firm fingers turn his face gently, until he is looking forward. If he concentrates, he fancies he can feel Ezio’s breath on his face.

“Look at me, Leonardo.”

He can’t, he mustn’t, he daren’t -

“Leonardo, please. Look at me.”

Slowly, reluctantly, he opens his eyes, knowing that when he opens them there will be no-one there -

Except that there _is._ Ezio is there, kneeling before him, his hand still clutching Leonardo’s face and something in his eyes Leonardo cannot read. His breath comes short and fast because he cannot believe that Ezio is here, this close to him, after months and months of absence he’s come back to him - his eyes take in every inch of him, drinking in the sight of his face with the desperation of a man who hasn’t seen water in weeks, and he can feel the poor shattered remains of his heart doing their best to beat. He lifts a hand to reach out for Ezio but he lets it drop at the last second, still too afraid this is a dream that will shatter at the merest touch.

“Forgive me, Leonardo,” Ezio is saying and Leonardo knows he will forgive him anything, _anything -_ “I should have come back sooner. I shouldn’t have stayed away.” Ezio drops his gaze, looks at the floor, and this time it’s Leonardo who reaches out and guides his face back up to meet his gaze. Ezio’s eyes are looking at him desperately. “Forgive me, amico mio, please.”

Leonardo lets out a little sigh and smiles. “You don’t even need to ask, Ezio. There is nothing to forgive.”

Suddenly Ezio is standing and he’s pulled Leonardo up with him, the aching of his joints suddenly dissipating and something joyful flowing through him as Ezio pulls him into a hug, so tight Leonardo can barely breathe, but he returns it just as fiercely. God, he’s missed this, missed the feeling of safety only Ezio can bring him, the scent of him and the warmth of him like a cocoon around Leonardo. He can hear Ezio breathing in little gasps in his ear and his back is trembling, as if he’s sobbing. Leonardo holds him tighter for a moment and begins to pull away, knowing Ezio will release him soon and not wanting to make a fool of himself; but Ezio doesn’t. He keeps Leonardo pressed against him and Leonardo holds his breath, his heartbeat erratic. Ezio cannot know what this is doing to him, what he wishes this means, but he doesn’t pull away. He lets Ezio hold him and he fists his hands in Ezio’s robes until gradually the other man loosens his grip just slightly.

Neither says anything, neither moves. They stand like that for what could be an eternity until Ezio’s whisper breaks the silence and Leonardo opens his eyes and looks at him in surprise.

“I’m afraid,” he says. “I - I don’t know how - I,” he scowls as he breaks off, and there’s something so vulnerable in his expression that Leonardo’s heart swells with love for him. He would be happy to simply stay like this forever, held close to Ezio and feeling his heartbeat and breathing in the smell of him.

But Ezio looks away, licking his lips, and when he glances back at Leonardo he understands. He can feel Ezio’s fingers digging into his shoulder blades and they are close, so close; he moves his hands up to Ezio’s upper arms and he hears the little sound that escapes Ezio then, and he puts up no resistance. Leonardo must be dreaming. He closes his eyes and leans in just a little closer, and still Ezio does not move away; all it takes is a second and their lips have met and Leonardo’s hand cups Ezio’s jaw.

This time Ezio does not remain rigid, cold as stone; he lets out a gasp and then he’s kissing him back, his hand moving to fist in Leonardo’s hair now that he knows what he’s doing. By God, he is a good kisser, and Leonardo is breathless. When they break apart he doesn’t open his eyes but rests his forehead against Ezio’s, confusion and joy and wonder all mixing and flowing through him because how can this be real? Has he finally gone mad with longing and lust and has dreamt this up?

“I was angry,” Ezio says quietly but his hand is still cupping Leonardo’s head, holding him close, and Leonardo tightens his grip on his arm. “I _thought_ I was angry, but i realised I missed you, Leonardo, I missed you something terrible. I should have come back sooner.” Leonardo places a finger against his lips as if to hush him but Ezio carries on. “No, I’m sorry. I was so confused, Leonardo, I couldn’t reconcile what I was feeling but then when _he_ came I knew, I knew I -”

Leonardo makes soothing noises and holds Ezio close again. How long has he dreamt of this? How many long and endless years has he spent longing for this, pining, wishing?

He laughs when Ezio captures his lips again, no shyness there now, only desire and Leonardo matches it, his whole body tingling and Ezio’s hands leaving trails of fire where they wander. How can such a love be wrong, he wonders, when someone as _good_ as Ezio feels it too? How can it be a sin when every touch of their bare skin against each other feels like holy fire, his whole body singing in ecstasy? He feels weightless, pure, divine, as they map out each other’s bodies, slowly discovering each other. He follows Ezio’s scars, kisses them; Ezio licks at the dark freckles on Leonardo’s pale skin.

He doesn’t think too much about the future, doesn’t think about anything beyond the here and now and each touch, each caress, that has him sighing in joy. He doesn’t think about what came before, what might happen after they lie there, out of breath and twined impossibly close.

“Amore mio,” Ezio whispers in Leonardo’s ear and Leonardo can only smile and hold him closer.

 _Amore mio._ It’s enough, he thinks, that he has Ezio with him now. It's enough that he’s safe and whole and here.

 _Amore mio._ It’s enough.

_Finis_


End file.
